Onboarding, deploying, configuring, and managing branch office technologies is a complex and time-consuming process—especially if your offices cross domestic (or international) borders.
On a base level, it requires a significant amount of planning and resources, even more so with larger organizations. You must navigate multiple vendors and domains while ensuring full-stack interoperability.
But without proper planning, your organization could risk experiencing poor application performance, network downtime, and even security breaches…Yikes! 😧
To address these issues, you need an orchestration solution that can streamline processes and provide full-stack visibility. While custom coding may seem like the only option, it doesn’t address possible issues holistically. Plus, this method can really ding your bottom line.
So how do you rely on orchestration without the need for custom coding? Let’s find out. ⬇️
Understanding the Challenges
Deploying and managing branch office technologies—at scale—is a difficult task for any organization, no matter the size.
With numerous vendors and domains involved, ensuring full-stack observability becomes a crucial hurdle that must be addressed. Failing to overcome these challenges can lead to lost time, money, and resources, even though they might not be felt immediately.
There are several challenges associated directly with provisioning branch offices. Let’s hit them one by one.
- Branch offices often have limited resources in terms of IT staff, budget, and infrastructure. This can make it difficult to deploy and manage the necessary hardware, software, and networking equipment.
- These offices may be located in areas with limited or unreliable connectivity, which can impact the performance and availability of applications and services.
- It’s also possible that branch offices could be vulnerable to security threats—like data breaches and cyber-attacks—due to the lack of security controls and oversight.
- As the organization grows, provisioning and managing multiple offices becomes increasingly complex as more locations are added.
- Branch offices may need to comply with local regulations and laws, which can vary from region to region. Ensuring compliance can be difficult, especially if the offices are in separate states.
Now that you understand the challenges, let’s move on to see how you can ensure your branch office technologies are functioning efficiently, securely, and effectively.
The Power of Orchestration
To power a modern branch office, it’s essential to lay a strong foundation from the beginning. 💪
This requires establishing repeatable and manageable processes that can be scaled as your organization grows. By doing things right from the start, you can avoid costly mistakes and benefit from long-term gains. But what if this isn’t an option?
The best time to start was when the first brick was laid—but starting today is much better than tomorrow. ✅
To kick it off, the orchestration of multi-vendor, multi-domain provisioning, configuration, and management are the important areas to focus on. This approach will:
- Streamline operations
- Reduce costs
- Minimize the potential for human error
If you have the ability to establish a solid foundation up front, you’ll be better off in the long run. If not, getting a late start isn’t the end of the world. By implementing an orchestration solution now, you’ll be able to minimize risk, improve efficiency, and pave the way for future growth and success.
With well-orchestrated processes, your organization can expect predictable and repeatable outcomes so you can focus on process refinement. But to truly benefit from orchestration, all SD-WAN elements must be in sync via API integration.
For that, you’d need a platform specifically designed for this purpose… ⬇️
Pliant: Orchestrating a Branch Office Symphony
Our platform provides simplified and streamlined automation solutions to engineering and operations teams. Our flexible workflow engine offers various options to design orchestrated workflows that cater to your specific needs while leveraging existing investments.
Our low-code “action blocks” form the foundation to simplify your workflow process within the platform. They empower you to create complex orchestration workflows through a modern, graphical interface without the need for multiple tools or custom coding. Yes, you heard that right. 🗣
Also, with Pliant NPM Connect, you can automate, integrate, and connect your entire infrastructure stack—leaving no piece of the puzzle to chance. This enables rapid and repeatable orchestration of your technologies and processes, no matter how many offices you may have.
Overall, our platform’s branch orchestration solution offers an efficient way for you to:
- Lower costs and increase team productivity
- Improve overall branch office performance and observability
- Accelerate SD-WAN provisioning and configuration to reduce manual toil
By enabling you to streamline your workflows and leverage existing investments, Pliant empowers you to achieve your goals more efficiently and effectively.
And with our growing library of integrations and unmatched SLA for new API-driven action blocks, your branch office coverage is now controlled under one unified platform.
➡️ Check out our datasheet on branch orchestration to learn more.
Final Thoughts
Over the long term, the risk of not using orchestration in your branch offices far outweighs the required upfront legwork. Fortunately, our pre-built solution eliminates the need for custom coding and is easy to deploy within our modern workflow interface.
Not sure if our solution will work for your organization? Take our free Community Edition for a spin to find out for today—no commitment required. 🚀
